A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (33 page)

One major influence of Confucianism was on gender perceptions and by extension sexual relations. Texts such as
Onna Daigaku
(Great Learning for Women) of 1716 preached the ‘five infirmities’ of women – indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness – and placed them in a greatly inferior position to men.
Onna Daigaku
observed that:
²⁸
‘Without any doubt, these five infirmities are found in seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women to men.’ This lowly view of women was one reason why so many – if not most – samurai preferred homosexual relationships.
²⁹
Moreover, according to the sometimes-followed Chinese philosophy of
yin
and
yang
, too much association with the female
yin
could seriously weaken the male
yang
.

Confucianists and the sh
gunate did not really approve of homosexuality, but turned a blind eye to it. The sh
gunate was particularly prepared to be tolerant because in Japan’s case physical male homosexuality invariably reflected social rank, with the active partner always the senior.
³⁰

Confucianism was not always good for the sh
gunate. One of its ironies was that it encouraged ideas of merit and learning. This was allowed for in concepts of hierarchy and rank in China, which permitted some mobility on the basis of learning and meritorious achievement, and in later centuries this was also to some extent to be allowed for in Japan. However, encouragement of merit and learning did not necessarily work in the best interests of the Tokugawa sh
gunate and its policy of unquestioning orthodoxy and stability. Over time rather more critical and questioning attitudes emerged in some quarters than the sh
gunate wanted – though this should not be overstated, for obedience was still the norm.

The children of samurai and nobles were educated at home or at special domain schools, and wealthy merchants also set up private schools. Increasingly the children of other classes had the opportunity to study at small schools known as
terakoya
(literally ‘temple-child building’). These were originally set up under the auspices of village temples but soon spread to the towns. Tuition was usually very cheap or free, since the teacher was often a priest who taught as an act of benevolence or a samurai who taught for a sense of self-worth. As a result of this widespread education the literacy rate in the later part of the period is estimated to have been 45 per cent for males and 15 per cent for females, giving an overall rate of 30 per cent. This was arguably the highest in the world at the time. It set an enduring trend, for Japan still has the highest literacy rate in the world at 99 per cent.

Another point of Confucianist irony was that its encouragement of obedience to the ruler inevitably raised the question of who exactly the ruler was. It did not escape the notice of an increasingly educated population that in China the ruler was the emperor. This effectively meant the sh
gun could be seen as a usurper.

Doubts about the sh
gunate intensified from the 1700s with the revival of Shint
, and early texts associated with it such as the
Kojiki
. Shint
and the
Kojiki
were seen as something purely Japanese, and became part of
kokugaku
(‘national learning’). In some ways this was a continuation of the emergence of national consciousness, prodded by the occasional reminder of the outside world in the form of castaways, or foreign ships seeking reprovisioning rights or similar. It was also an expression of a feeling that Japan was a little too Chinese.
Kokugaku
scholars included such figures as Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) and Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843). Motoori produced an annotated version of the
Kojiki
and was openly critical of things Chinese. Hirata argued the superiority of Shint
and Japan and was to be part-inspiration for later Japanese nationalism and imperialism.

The idealisation of the way of the samurai, the revival of Confucianism, the spread of education, and the emergence of nationalism were all to play a part in the formation of modern Japan. So too, of course, did the conformism and orthodoxy that formed their setting.

3.3   Commoners, Culture, and the Economy

Edo soon became a bustling centre. The location there of the sh
gunate, and the alternate attendance of the
daimy
and their retainers, made this inevitable. By the end of the eighteenth century it had a population of around a million, making it the biggest city in the world at the time. It was such a part of the life of the age that the whole period is often popularly called the Edo period.